Asian Window

Mike Atherton, Chief Cricket Correspondent, in the Times:

Memo to Indian cricket supporters: it is time to grow up. Sport is not about winning, it is about losing. Twelve teams have been taking part in this tournament and only one of them will return winners. The rest will be losers.

They will lose in various ways – some thrillingly, some abjectly – but lose they will. It is what makes the moments of triumph all the more special.

After all, if winning was all that there was, what would there be to celebrate? Indian supporters, the most immature in cricket, cannot seem to grasp this simple fact.

So where once temples were erected in Ranchi to deify its most famous son, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, now effigies are burnt. Once the Army had to be called out because the mob had laid homage to a hair salon where Dhoni was having his luxuriant locks lopped off, but veneration has now turned to vituperation. More:

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